Something in the Water(48)

He reaches for my hand across the table as we eat, an unconscious gesture. We loosely clasp each other, our bodies seeking something to hold on to in this strange yet familiar new world.

After we finish I look out of the window at the trees outside, where the branches meet the clear blue sky. A clear crisp day. Mark squeezes my hand. He smiles across at me.

“I suppose we should get started then, shouldn’t we?” he says.

I smile. We both don’t want to. Get started, I mean. We don’t want reality just yet. We’d rather sit here together and hold hands. But we’ll do it together. We’ll make it fun. Mark and I.

“Let’s do it,” I declare, and rise from the table. “Let’s do it.”

The first job is to unpack the bags, and by that I don’t mean the clean and dirty clothes. We take scissors to the suitcase linings and remove the bundles of notes. Mark fetches an old weekend bag from his wardrobe and I begin to pack the bundles away into it. Of course, the original bag is gone now. Probably in a wheelie bin in the basement of the Four Seasons back in Bora Bora, torn and empty, its contents safely removed.

Next I remove the diamonds from their sanitary towel packaging. We empty them all into a thick plastic freezer baggie. Somehow they still manage to sparkle through the thick clouded plastic. Mark drops the phone and the USB into another freezer bag and then I place both of the plastic bags in the attic. I hide them under some loose insulation in the far corner of the eaves. They should be safe there. I remember when we first bought the house, all the forgotten things we found in the attic. Things can go unnoticed in lofts for decades, and no one really puts anything they actually care about in the attic, do they? They’ll be safe there. As I climb down the ladder a wave a nausea rolls over me. I don’t know why, maybe it’s been bubbling away at the back of my mind, but I have a feeling I know what it is, instinctively.

I head to the bathroom and find what I’m looking for at the back of the cupboard. A pregnancy test. I keep a standby pack in the cupboard, just in case. I’ve always hated the idea of having to trudge to a shop and furtively buy one in an actual emergency situation. I like to be prepared, which I’m sure you’ve gathered by now. There are three sticks. I unwrap one and pee on it. I place it on the edge of the bathtub and wait. Sixty seconds. I think about our plan. About what comes next.

The hardest part will be the diamonds. Selling the diamonds. Converting the diamonds from beautiful sparkling possibilities into cold hard cash. That’s going to take time and a certain amount of finesse. And of course a whole lot of Internet searches.

I have no idea how to sell diamonds or who to sell them to but we’ll get to that. First we’ll tackle the money. We’ll get that dealt with and then we’ll go from there. But even dealing with the money isn’t a simple task.

You can’t just wander up to a bank and hand the cashier one million U.S. dollars in cash unfortunately. It tends to raise concerns. Where you got it tends to be an issue. Tax is an issue. Hell, even currency conversion rate is an issue.

Luckily for us, Mark knows banks.



* * *



—

Sixty seconds up. I peer at the stick. The cross is blue.

Huh.

I try another one. Place it on the edge of the bathtub and wait.

It’s probably faulty. Could be faulty. Best not to get too involved in that result just yet. Think about the plan. Yes. The plan.

According to Mark, here’s what we need to do: we need to open a bank account where people won’t ask questions, where that’s the whole selling point of the bank. Not asking questions. Banks like that exist and Mark is going to find us one.

I’ll give you one guess as to the type of person you don’t ask questions to. Correct. Rich people. Very rich people. You’re probably noticing a theme here. I’m beginning to realize that being rich doesn’t really mean having money to buy nice things; it means having money to avoid the rules. The rules are there for the other people, the people without the money, the ones who drive you about in your cars, fly your planes, cook your food. Rules can be bypassed with money or even just the mystique surrounding money. Flights can vanish, people can find people, people can live or die without the hassle of police or doctors or paperwork.

If, and only if, you have the money to make things run smoothly for yourself. And with our bag we can make things run smoothly.

Sixty seconds done. I check the stick. That cross is definitely blue. Shit. How can that be, though? Isn’t it supposed to take ages to get pregnant? I suppose it has been two whole months of trying. No, can’t be. Must have done it wrong. I check the pack. No, I haven’t got it wrong; a cross means pregnant. Blank is not pregnant. Huh.

One test left. Not much pee left.

Sixty seconds pass.

Blue cross.

Shit. I’m having a child.

When I finally get out of the bathroom Mark is in the study booking us two flights to Switzerland. I stand over his shoulder for a few minutes until he turns.

“You okay?” He smirks. I’m standing there in silence. I guess he thinks I’m shirking my duties while he’s a hive of industry.

I try to speak but I can’t say it. I can’t tell him. It’ll mess up the plan. I’ll mess up all the plans.

“Yeah, I’m fine, sorry,” I say. “Completely zoned out.”